Previously on 2015 Fall Trip to India: Zilko and his friends went to India to attend a wedding. After spending two days in Chennai and seven more days in the heart of Tamil Nadu, it was time to call this trip an end and go back to real life Europe.

***

As I said in the Part I post, we bought our return tickets from Air France’s website. While our departure involved an airline that was not Air France nor a SkyTeam member, Etihad Airways, our returning flights were much closer related to SkyTeam. We were flying three sectors on this way back to Europe btw: Coimbatore – Mumbai – Paris CDG – Amsterdam, like this:

Coimbatore Airport was still like how it was last year, nothing much had changed. Even the small cafe where we bought some snacks for breakfast last year was also still there, haha 😆 . Long story short, we checked-in (and made sure that our luggages had been tagged all the way to Amsterdam), passed the security check (where the officer was so chatty and mentioned that the Netherlands was a beautiful country 😛 ), used the free internet access for 20ish minutes, and waited for our flight. The free internet access enabled me to check our plane today. It turned out to be one of Jet Airways’ younger fleet: a 2 years old Boeing 737-800 reg VT-JFN.

Fast forward, we boarded VT-JFN which was fitted with Boeing’s Sky Interior (loved it!) and settled on our seats. There was no IFE, however, so the safety demo was performed manually. We took off smoothly from runway 05 of Coimbatore Airport. As it was an evening flight, the LED mood lighting was set in blue today. To me it was the perfect balance because it was not too bright (so the passengers could relax) while at the same time not too dark (as it was just a shortish domestic flight so they might not want to get asleep anyway).

About 30 minutes into the flight, the complimentary meal service was started. The options were very Indian btw: veg or non-veg (read: vegetarian or non-vegetarian). Well, obviously I chose the non-vegetarian one, haha 😆 . It turned out to be a good choice because it was not too spicy while the vegetarian one was more spicy. For the drink, I asked for a “tea” to which the flight attendant replied “I’m sorry Sir, we don’t have green tea but we have normal tea instead. Is it good for you?“. And I was like “Yeah” (because normal tea was what I asked for, not green tea, even though had they had green tea I would have prefered that instead indeed, lol 😆 ).

The non-vegetarian complimentary meal service on board Jet Airways’ flight 9W 424. It was good

Anyway, the rest of the flight was rather uneventful because of the non-existence of IFE on board. At 22:05, we landed at runway 27 of Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport. Here is the landing video:

Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA)

VT-JFN was parked at the domestic terminal of CSIA and because we had an international connecting flight, we took the shuttle bus service to the international terminal. The service was quite unique because the shuttle bus moved INSIDE the airport ramp! But it came with a price though: there was a long security line before boarding the bus. But it was worth it (to me) because it was so cool to ride a bus INSIDE an airport! I mean, we got to see a lot of different planes in the airport, namely Air India’s Boeing 747-400; and we had to drive around runway 14 too! Super coool!! 😀 It was basically like a free airport tour!! 😀

A few days prior, my friend spotted a photo of CSIA and it looked super nice. But I was suspicious and said it was probably a shot of a lounge there or something because it looked very fancy and elegant! But boy oh boy, how I was soo wrong. Big time!! I have to say now that the international terminal building of Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport is the MOST BEAUTIFUL airport terminal building I have ever been to in my life!! It is just SOO PRETTY!!!

The entrance of Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport

I was constantly wowed throughout our 2.5ish hours of transit there! It was just so beautiful, even the common areas looked like lounges! Seriously!! WOW!! :shocked:

However, the immigration check was extremely busy though and we had to wait for about half an hour before finally cleared. It kinda reminded me of our return flight from Delhi to Paris earlier this year too in New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport. We decided to sit in a bar where we planned to spend our last Rupee bills. But then we were shocked that the price for a small bottle of beer was about €10! So I decided that I could wait until I was back in Europe for beer, and got a cola instead which I could afford with my last Rs 60 bills, lol 😆 .

The departure gate of Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport

We were not all travelling together to go back to Europe. One of us was returning to Copenhagen with Lufthansa’s flight via Munich which was scheduled to leave about one hour before our flight to Paris. At her flight’s boarding time, we said goodbye at her departure gate; and she boarded her Lufthansa’s Airbus A330-300 flight. About one hour later, it was our turn to board our AF 217 flight to Paris.

Shortly after take-off from runway 27 of Mumbai’s CSIA, a light snack service was served. From thereon, I was able to sleep quite well. I got up about 1.5 hours before landing, just in time for the breakfast service. At 07:13 local time, we landed smoothly at runway 26L of Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport, my seventh time this year landing there, lol 😆 . Here is the landing video nevertheless 😛 :

As it was my sixth time this year transferring in Paris Charles de Gaulle ( 😆 ), there is not much more to say. So I’ll immediately get to our last flight of the trip.

When making the reservation, there was actually an option for an earlier connecting Paris – Amsterdam flight with Air France. However, I decided to choose this specific flight because, at the time of booking, it was indicated that this flight would be operated with a KLM’s Boeing 737-900, a super rare bird out there. In the website until our departure to India, there was no changes at all so I was quite sure I would get to fly with a Boeing 737-900! So I was very surprised while checking Flightradar24 that flight KL 1229 was operated with PH-BXN, a Boeing 737-800!! Damn! They changed the airplane type last minute! 😦 As a result, our booked seat of 16A and 16B were no longer the emergency seats (which we were able to reserve free of charge 😛 )!

On board KLM’s Boeing 737-800 reg PH-BXN

At first we were happy that seat 16C was empty. But then it turned out that a tall big French guy, who was sitting on 15C, an emergency seat, did not speak any English at all so the flight attendant asked him to move to seat 16C during take-off and landing. This was because in case an emergency occurred, passengers sitting on the emergency seats should be able to follow their instruction, which would be in English. Damn 😦 . I thought I did not jynx it when I said to my friend I was glad seat 16C was empty after boarding was completed; but I was wrong. I jynxed it 😆

Anyway, it was a routine 50 minutes flight between Paris and Amsterdam. At 11:28 we landed smoothly at runway 18C of Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. Here is the landing video:

And here, my 10 day trip to India this fall officially ended.

THE END.

Coimbatore Airport

The departure area of Coimbatore Airport

My seat on board Jet Airways’ VT-JFN

No IFE on VT-JFN

Good seat pitch

Taking off from runway 05 of Coimbatore Airport

Tea and snack

Landing at runway 27 of Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport

Jet Airways’ Boeing 737-800 reg VT-JFN

The check-in area of Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport

Air France’s Premium Economy Cabin on board an Airbus A330-200

The super generous seat pitch in Premium Economy

The breakfast service

An Air France’s Airbus A330-200 reg F-GZCI

My seat on board KLM’s PH-BXN

Taking off from runway 27L of Paris Charles De Gaulle International Airport

Previously on 2015 Fall Trip to India: Zilko and his friends went to India to attend a wedding. After arriving in Chennai and spending two full days there, they took the Shatabdi Express to go to the heart of Tamil Nadu, where the wedding would take place.

And this post is all about the wedding 🙂 .

***

First of all, let me tell you that an Indian wedding is probably one of the most complex weddings in the world as in there are a lot of ceremonies that are involved. In our friends’ case, it would be so many that before the trip, our friends sent us (people from the Netherlands 😛 ) a 22 pages document of all the ceremonies’ description! 😆 In total, the wedding took four days to complete (well, even one week if we count the engagement party).

So this post will be just a brief summary of all of those, in the ceremonies that we attended (we did not need to attend all of them (thankfully since some started really early in the morning, lol!)).

Mehndi Ceremony

This ceremony was only for the ladies and was one where they applied mehndi paste onto the skin in rich design to decorate the body. In short, it looked like a type of temporary tattoo, even though it was not really a tattoo. Apparently it was also good to prevent stress during the wedding and also to cool the body down (well, it was so hot in India so this last feature must have been quite useful).

Mehndi Ceremony

Too bad I did not get the chance to get one too because, to be honest, it looked kinda cool 😛 . *don’t judge . Btw, this was held three days before the wedding and was the first ceremony which we attended. Okay, we (the guys) did not really attend it though since it was specifically prepared for the ladies. So we came there later when the ceremony was almost over and it was almost time for lunch 😛 .

Nallangu Ceremony

In short, it was a ceremony to prepare the groom and the bride for the wedding. The guests applied turmeric paste to the groom’s and bride’s faces, rice was sprinkled onto them, and flowers and leaves were exchanged between the guests and the groom and bride. Of course I took part as well because it looked fun 😛 . “Weird” stuffs were also put to the groom and bride. For instance, onion necklace, flower necklace, peanut necklace, candies necklace, a “crown” made from leaves, etc (all at once!).

At the Nallangu ceremony

At first we thought there was some meaning behind it, for instance like to wish them to never be hungry or something. But later on during lunch break our Indian friend described it as a ceremony to make the groom and bride looked ugly to make all the envy go away. Oh, okay, haha…

Sangeeth Ceremony

When one thinks of an Indian movie, I bet most people would associate it with the singing and the dancing. Well, it is because the Indians do love singing and dancing!! This was highlighted during this Sangeeth Ceremony.

It was held on the night before the reception where many people performed. From this cute girl:

A little girl dancing

to these ladies:

The ladies

and this girl

A girl dancing

and this group of a mother and her three daughters:

A mother and her three daugthers performing

and the boys as well:

The boys participated as well

Our Indian friend even “forced” us to perform as well. The day before, she arranged dance teachers for us to sing along an Indian song (which I had never heard of before, lol). I was shocked, lol, but took part anyway because it was fun! 😀 At one point they taught us a move and we were so bad and they were like “Please never do that ever again“, lol 😆 .

A proof that I also participated, it was video-taped

During the ceremony, we also organized a surprise treasure hunt game to the groom and the bride (thankfully the organizer was so willing to cooperate with our idea 😛 ).

The Reception

Before the reception, they took us to a small Ganesh temple nearby the wedding venue where the groom would arrive, pray, and then we all walked to the venue. And it was by no means low-key; music was played loudly and surely we were drawing attention from all the people, lol 😆 .

Wedding selfie

Anyway, the reception was similar to wedding receptions everywhere else though where people took photos with the groom and the bride and congratulated them.

The Wedding

Due to time constraint, the order in our friends’ wedding was flipped where the wedding itself was actually the last of all the series of ceremonies they had. It was a very religious (Hindu) ceremony which lasted for about two and a half hour where a few monks from the Sangameswarar Temple led the prayers.

Blessing the newlyweds

At one point the guests were given yellow rice to be thrown towards the groom and the bride as a way of blessing them 🙂 . Well, after the wedding we also got the chance to do that too though by going up to the stage and, well, sprinkled yellow rice onto them. After the wedding, the groom and the bride were asked to play some traditional Indian wedding games which looked quite fun too 😛 .

Previously on 2015 Fall Trip to India: Zilko and his friends went to India to attend a wedding. After arriving in Chennai and spending two full days there, they took the Shatabdi Express to go to the heart of Tamil Nadu, where the wedding would take place.

***

I split the story of our time in our friend’s village for the wedding into two posts: one is fully dedicated to the wedding and the other is for the other places/activities that we visited/did while we were there. I will start with the latter with this post.

The Sangameswarar Temple and the Holy Elephant

We went to the Sangameswarar Temple again. Yes, “again” because last year we also visited this big temple near our Indian friend’s house. Just like last year, our friend’s parents took us there and showed us how to pray in a Hindu temple. It was more or less the same as what we did last year, except that this time we had it during the day 😀 .

The Sangameswarar Temple

There was one thing that was different this time though.

Being a big and important temple in the region, there was a holy elephant residing in the temple. Yes, not just any elephant, he was THE holy elephant 😆 .

Last year, while we were there, the elephant was taking an annual leave from his duty and was on vacation (seriously) so we did not get the chance to meet him. But this year though, he was not vacationing during our visit! Yay!! 😀

We met the holy elephant after praying at the temple. We had to give out a small amount (Rs 10) to the elephant, who would take the bill with his trunk and then bless us with his trunk. We were allowed to take pictures while the elephant were blessing us (thanks to our friend’s parents who were devoted members of the temple so they knew the elephant guy).

Of course I got blessed too! 😀 And now I understand why the holy elephant was holy. He was, indeed, not just an elephant. He was so smart! While getting blessed, I gave my camera to my friend to take a picture of the blessing, but then she did not get a good shot of it. The elephant, somehow, knew it and he kept blessing me until we got a good shot of the blessing! Wow!!! :shocked: As the result in the end, I got “blessed” about 8 or 9 times, haha 😆 .

Getting blessed by the holy elephant

But I guess being holy had its disadvantage too. So my friends’ parents would want to serve some offerings (some types of fruits) to the elephant. However, the elephant guy said no because, well umm, the holy elephant got a diabetes because of all the offerings he got in the past. 😅😅😅😅😅

😐

Okay, so it probably makes sense that diabetes can occur to some forms of life other than humans too…

Coimbatore

For now, let us fast forward to the last day of our Fall Trip to India this year.

To go back to Europe, we would start by flying from the city of Coimbatore to Mumbai on a Jet Airways’ domestic flight. As this flight was scheduled to leave in the evening and we had to put some things into our itinerary for the day, we decided to rent a car and spend a day in Coimbatore before going to the airport.

At first we were thinking about visiting a temple there. But then we changed our mind and decided to just take it easy today by going to a mall, haha 😆 . For this, we chose the Brookefields mall because there was a cinema there.

Deal or No Deal

However, it turned out that none of the movie was possible for us to watch so we dropped the idea. Instead, we just indulged ourselves in: playing some games at a game center (my favorite was the Deal or No Deal game), having some coffee at a cafe, and, my favorite this one was, going to a salon where I got an Indian head massage! Haha 😆

The Food

Outside of the wedding, we had most our meals at our hotel which provided good meals. Wow, I loved all the food they provided even though mostly were frying-based food so it was not super healthy, haha 😆 .

Another memorable restaurant that we visited was a restaurant which we also visited last year which was my friend’s brother’s favorite restaurant in Erode, haha 😆 . The food was great, just like last year (where we ordered the Japan chicken, tandoori chicken, and a quail dish). However, the most memorable experience from this restaurant was, well, the eating experience itself.

Japan chicken and tandoori chicken

So we went there ourselves without our Indian friend and none of us were Indian. We were quite early today for dinner and we were the only people dining there. And what happened was that after serving our orders, the waiters just circled around our table and they watched us eat, closely 😐 .

Previously on 2015 Fall Trip to India: Zilko and his friends went to India to attend a wedding. After arriving in Chennai and spending two full days there, they were ready to go to their friend’s village for the wedding.

***

Prologue

One experience which I missed from my previous trip to India was the train experience (Delhi’s metro doesn’t count of course). So for this reason we chose Chennai as a destination since it was possible to take a train (with reasonable amount of trip time) from Chennai to our Indian friend’s village in the heart of Tamil Nadu.

Took the train in India so obviously a selfie (and got laughed at by the woman behind me)

Since weeks before the trip, we had tried to book the tickets online but we could not as apparently we needed a local Indian number for that. We contacted our hotel in Chennai to book them for us but they asked us to transfer some money manually to a local Indian bank which had no IBAN code hence (1) it was unsecure, (2) the transfer process would take too long anyway, and on top of those (3) the processing fee would be so high that it doubled the train tickets’ price 😆 . So we decided to wing it and see how it would go once we were in India. Long story short, finally we were able to secure the tickets through our hotel, even with lower price than what we agreed in our email exchange weeks before, lol 😆 .

While we wanted to experience an Indian train ride, at the same time we were also looking for some comfort, lol 😆 . For this reason we booked the Shatabdi Express, which was the top-tier tain service in India (they branded it the superfast train even though it did not travel nearly as fast as the high-speed train in Europe or Japan, lol 😆 ). The train consisted of 1 first class AC coach and 8 second class AC coaches. We were looking for tickets for the first class AC coach but everything was sold out already. So we went with the second class which should still be okay as it was equipped with AC, haha.

The Trip

The Shatabdi Express

The Shatabdi Express was scheduled to leave Chennai Central Station at 07:15. So we got up early, checked out from our hotel at 06:30, and took our pre-arranged taxi to the station. Luckily it was not difficult to find our train where, funnily (at least it was quite funny to me), they printed the name of all the passengers and put it by every coach’s door. We found our seat in the 3-2 configured second class AC coach. The AC turned out to be really chilly, btw, and it was like this for the entire 5 hours trip to Erode Junction.

The train departed a little bit late (10 minutes); but the service on board was beyond my expectation! Yes, there WAS service even in second class! First, they started by handing out a 1.5 liter bottled water to everyone. Then, a light snack service which consisted of hot tea and Marie biscuits was served. Not long after, the breakfast service was provided. Technically there was supposed to be two options: vegetarian or non-vegetarian. Our hotel guy got us the vegetarian dish but he said we could switch to non-vegetarian while being served. However, it did not seem like the opportunity came during service as the only server looked extremely busy distributing all the meals to the 70+ passengers in the coach. Nevertheless, the breakfast was okay which consisted of some Indian breakfast dishes and a pair of white bread.

Breakfast service

A Tamil view

Many said a train trip in India would offer beautiful scenery. While I agreed that the scenery was great and was definitely nothing like Europe, to me it also did not strike as special as it was basically similar to what ones would see while taking a train during the day in Java! Haha 😆 . There were rice fields, some palm/coconut trees, some hills came and went once in awhile, and some local villages. Beautiful though? Yes. Wow to me? No. But of course this is not to say that this is the same everywhere in India.

Erode Junction

Our friend’s village was located close to Erode and Erode was the closest town where the Shatabdi Express stopped; so we got off here. Surprisingly (?) though, the train arrived on time in Erode Junction Station!! Kudos to Indian Railways!

We got off the train station, looked for a taxi, and went to the hotel which our friend had arranged for us.

Previously on 2015 Fall Trip to India: Zilko and his friends went to India to attend a wedding. After a day of travel, they arrived at the capital of the Tamil Nadu state, Chennai, and would spend a few days there before going to the wedding.

***

Chennai

Being a coastal city located on a shore of the Bay of Bengal, naturally the air in Chennai was humid, translation: it was so freaking hot out there, 😆 . But it was a little bit of a nice break from the colder environment in Europe though; even though in a longer term I would still prefer cold than hot weather, lol 😆 . Anyway, in one full day which we decided to spend in Chennai, we visited two types of places: a temple and the shopping malls, haha 😆

The Kapaleeshwarar Temple

The Kapaleeshwarar Temple

The Kapaleeshwarar Temple was a medium-sized Hindu temple in the heart of Chennai. While we were allowed to, at least, enter the temple area (inside the gate), we were not allowed to get into the temple itself for being non-Hindus. Too bad when we were there, some construction works were going on to, possibly, maintain the temple’s beautiful structure.

The Shopping Malls

We visited two shopping malls there: the Chennai Citi Centre and the Express Avenue mall. Chennai Citi Centre was a very small mall with few stuffs to see so it was quite boring to me. The Express Avenue mall, however, was much better. My friend got a hair cut there where for the same price as in Europe, she got much more treatments! Haha 😆

The Express Avenue mall was connected to the E hotel which, at the time that we were there, had a happy hour buy one get one promotion for drinks at their bar! So we decided to make use of this offer, which turned out to include complimentary (unlimited) snacks as well! Two types of snack were served: the standard salty peanuts and cassava chips! And I loved the cassava chips as it reminded me a lot of Indonesia, haha 😆 .

Mamallapuram

On our other full day in Chennai, we decided to rent a car and went to the town of Mamallapuram, some 60 km south of Chennai.

The Crocodile Bank

A lot of crocodiles!!

On our way to Mamallapuram, we passed the Crocodile Bank and decided to pay a visit. As its name suggest, it was a crocodile farm where, basically, there were plenty of different types of crocodiles there. After paying a small entrance fee of only Rs 40 per person for adult, we spent about 45 minutes in the Bank. It was really cool though as we saw (1) many different types of crocodiles, including those with thin jaws and (2) a lot of crocodiles. I don’t think I have seen these many crocodiles since visiting a similar crocodile farm back in Thailand about 12 years ago, haha.

There were also options for people to, if they wanted, adopt some of the crocodiles. I am not really sure what “to adopt” means in the sense whether you would have to take the crocodiles home with you or you would just need to donate some money to the Bank to take care of them. Either way, well, I don’t think I am ready to adopt anything at this point, haha 😆 .

The Temples of Mamallapuram

Khrisna’s butterball

The Five Rathas

Mamallapuram was a beautiful small town with its main attraction being the historical Hindu temples, which were really cool. Our driver introduced us to a local guide that he knew and we decided to hire him. His service turned out to be just standard. It was not bad in the sense that his English accent was not difficult to follow; but it was not superb as well as most information he provided was standard information of the site. Too less trivias.

There were four sites which we visited today: The Arjuna’s Penance, The Khrisna’s Butterball, The Shore Temple, and The Five Rathas. It happened that we were in Mamallapuram at the perfect time at around sunset where the sun light made the site even prettier! So if you plan to go there, I would advise you to be there about 1 hour before sunset (and hoping that the weather would be good of course)!

The Shore Temple. To me it looked like some Hindu temples in Java

All sites were amazing for their own reason. I loved the carvings on the rock of the Arjuna’s Penance. The Khrisna’s Butterball just looked simply amazing as it was a big roundly-shaped rock that, somehow, got stuck. The Shore Temple and the Five Rathas are ancient Hindu temples and, in some way, they reminded of some Hindu temples we can find in Central Java 🙂 .

The Food

When departing for this trip, I could not wait for the food of course! Especially I was so looking forward to those dosas! Haha 😆 . And Chennai did not disappoint us. We had a lot of local food, one at a restaurant which another Indian friend of ours, who was a native Chennai, recommended. At the Express Avenue mall, we went to a fancy looking Indian restaurant which also offered good South Indian dish.

Yay!! A dosa again!!

At Mamallapuram, we had lunch at a seafood restaurant and I was (and still am) sure we were being scammed. They gave us a menu book with prices and we made our decision based on it. We ordered a fish dish and calamari for Rs 350 each, and some rice and drinks. But then a few minutes after we placed our order, the waiter came back and the price for us was Rs 600 per PERSON. Of course we complained because it was not what was stated in the menu book and how could he just come up with a number like that. He said the menu book price was only for small fish while we got big fish. Well, funnily, when I asked about the fish’s size while making the order, he said they only had one size. Lol, so what was the menu book price for? 😆

My friends and I decided to come a few days earlier before the wedding for some short trip in India. What we had in our mind was somewhere in South India so we would be able to reach our friend’s village with train. And then in May I found a good deal for a ticket to Chennai and we booked it right away. So off the Chennai we went! We did not fly there directly though. We bought the tickets from Air France’s website which gave us KLM flights (with KLM’s flight number) that would be operated by Etihad Airways. Haha, aren’t we loving this business these days? A single departing ticket that involved three different airlines! Lol 😆 .

As we were flying Etihad, we were flying Amsterdam – Abu Dhabi – Chennai, like this:

Our flight was scheduled to depart at 22:00. It was such a good timing though because I did not have to rush to the airport at all, haha 😆 .

We arrived at the airport at around 19:00. After checking-in at the counter, we passed the security and immigration check (thanks to my Silver Flying Blue membership, we did not have to queue for too long, lol 😆 ). We went to the gate, which was conveniently located next to a bar and a small fast food restaurant. We had dinner at the restaurant first where I ordered a pork ramen.

An Etihad’s Airbus A330-200 reg A6-EYD which would bring us to Abu Dhabi today

Boarding commenced on time, on which we could use my Silver card to board first as a Sky Priority passengers, haha 😆 . Btw, the flight today would be operated with an Airbus A330-200 with registration A6-EYD which was already in Etihad’s new livery! Yeayy!! 😀

We settled in our seat at the middle section of the plane. Boarding took some time to complete, much to my surprise though because an Airbus A330-200 was not that big of an airplane. Nevertheless, we departed on time at 22:00. We took off from the infamous Polderbaan so taxiing took awhile to get to the runway 36L of Polderbaan.

The first thing which made me “whoaa” was the headphone that they provided in the flight for the passengers to enjoy the IFE. It was like this:

The headphone in economy!!

Yes, it was the best headphone I have ever had when flying economy! Haha 😆 . Btw, our seat section today was served by a very very beautiful flight attendant who looked like Ana Ivanovic, haha 😛 .

A few moments after take-off, dinner service began. The second thing which made me, again, “whoaa” was the presence of three meals options in economy (in all other flights that I had taken, there were only two (sometimes even only one) meals options)! The choices today were chicken, lamb, or vegetarian pasta. Well, it was easy for me. Lamb all the way of course! However, the dish turned out to be not as good and there were only few pieces of lamb meat. So I was a little bit disappointed.

On board A6-EYD in the morning. Btw, the flight attendant in this picture was “Ana Ivanovic” as I mentioned above 😛

It was a routine 7 hours-ish flight to Abu Dhabi. I tried to sleep but I could not really. About 1.5 hours before arrival, a light snack service was provided which consisted of a piece of chocolate muffin. It was quite good. At 07:10 Abu Dhabi time, A6-EYD landed smoothly at runway 13L of Abu Dhabi International Airport. Here is the landing video:

We parked at a remote parking area so we had to be taken by bus to get to the terminal building.

Transit in Abu Dhabi

Here is the thing, we would have an 8 hour of transit in Abu Dhabi. One option would be, of course, to visit the city of Abu Dhabi and do a short sightseeing tour. However, because (1) our connecting fligt would depart at 15:00 so we would have to go back to the airport before noon if we decided to go to Abu Dhabi and (2) I would need a visa to enter United Arab of Emirates and I found the visa fee to be quite high for such a short visit to the city. Therefore, my friend and I decided to just stay at the airport.

I found Abu Dhabi Airport to be a little bit, well, old and underwhelming. It was definitely not like Dubai’s which was really cool and modern. However, I think it was because the terminal we were in was the old terminal. I saw a big construction work was going on at the airport and it appeared that they were building new terminal(s) which, from the outside, looked promising.

We decided to wait in this lounge

Eight hour was certainly a really long time for a transit in a not very comfortable terminal building. Therefore, we decided to go to an executive lounge for around €60 for five hours and killed some time there. It was a good decision though. The free wifi connection was faster, we had nice sofas to sit on, and there was complimentary food, snack, and drinks all the time, haha. And so I was able to sleep(-ish) a little bit 🙂 .

EY270 (Abu Dhabi – Chennai)

At 13:30, we left the lounge and went to our gate. Our plane was parked in a remote parking (again) so they had to take us there with bus. The bus stopped at a ramp with several Airbus A320-200s and they took us to one of them, A6-EIF. Btw, yes, this would be my longest flight with a narrow-body plane A320-200. 😀

After boarding was completed, we took off from runway 31L of Abu Dhabi International Airport. The take-off made me realize that Abu Dhabi was, indeed, in a desert! Here is the take-off video:

The view upon take-off was amazing though. Aside from the desert (and sea), we also got to see several structures, including the Yas Marina Circuit where the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, a Formula 1 race, is held annually.

We did not get headphones on this Airbus A320-200 flight, instead we got earphones which were still okay quality-wise. Not long after take-off, the lunch service started. Just like in the EY 78 flight, there were three options for the meal: lamb, fish, or a vegetarian rice dish. A little bit disappointed with the lamb dish I had in the previous flight and not wanting to eat something vegetarian (lol, 😆 ), I had no other option than the fish dish. It turned out to be quite good though.

About two hours after take-off, the sun set in the west and it looked so stunning!

Sunset over the Arabian Sea

After sunset, they turned off the light and the now dimmed cabin made me so sleepy! Haha 😆 . I slept for pretty much the rest of the trip and just woke up when we were approaching Chennai International Airport. The crew announced that we would be landing way ahead of our scheduled arrival btw (by about an hour!). And at 19:55, we landed at runway 07 of Chennai International Airport. Here is the landing video:

Chennai, we were back! 🙂

Then, it was the normal stuff of passing the immigration and we took our luggage.

The Aftermath

We went out the airport looking for an ATM machine but none was available just outside the international terminal. It was so annoying. So we had to walk all the way down to the domestic terminal to get some cash.

Chennai International Airport

Btw, we were probably few passengers in the plane who were not entirely happy that we landed 1 hour ahead of schedule, haha. Our plan was to wait for another friend whose flight from Frankfurt was scheduled to land at around 23:45. So early landing in Chennai meant longer waiting time! But well, what could we do. So we just waited there at the entrance of the terminal, where no proper cafe/restaurant with seats was available, for about three hours 😆 . At least our friend’s flight from Frankfurt was not delayed.

So, this morning I was back in the Netherlands after an about ten days trip to India for my friends’ wedding. How was it? Well, I am saving the stories for later but it was so much FUN!! 😀

Oh, and btw, my returning 9 hours flight from Mumbai to Paris was upgraded from regular economy to premium economy! Yeay!! I was so excited because it was the first time ever in my life this happened to me; and it was also my first time flying in a class above economy! Haha 😛

Upgraded to premium economy!

Anyway, unsurprisingly at the moment I am feeling SO tired. I decided to work in the afternoon today because there is so much things to be done.

So here I am now, resting and recollecting my energy at home. And here are a few teasers from the trip, as per usual 😉